Writing in Tuesday’s edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Senator
Lisa Murkowski, a crucial swing vote on both healthcare and tax reform,
announced her support for the besieged GOP tax package.

“I have always supported the freedom to choose,” Murkowski writes. “That is the
fundamental reason why I opposed the Affordable Care Act from its inception, and
also why I co-sponsored a bill to repeal the individual mandate tax as early as 2013. And that is why I support the repeal of that tax today.”

To her credit, Murkowski urged fellow members of Congress to consider and pass Alexander/Murray, a bipartisan, sensible piece of health legislation designed to stabilize our insurance markets. That doesn’t mean they will, and recent history indicates that banking on future congressional action is dangerous at best. Like many of her GOP colleagues, this action shows a willingness to gamble with the lives of fellow Americans, nothing more.

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Nicholas Young is a husband, father, technologist, and rare illness advocate currently hailing from Denver, Colorado. He lives amid the snow-covered mountains with his wife, Susan, and daughter, Sloan.